Judle Wrote:They should raise the GST and minimum wage, and make the GST for essentials like groceries 0%

Pro except for the raise GST part. I think income tax is much more flexible and dependable.

P4 Wrote:Hold up, maybe one of us does have to die; I think we actually agree, its just the definition of when someone is 'rich' , you think current policies only help the rich, but I think they only help middle class.

I don't actually think this, and I've never implied as such.

P4 Wrote:Also the Robin Hood analogy, is not a good example for you; It is folklore, so accuracy can't really be verified, but I think you'l find Robin Hood was made an outlaw after having his land confiscated by the king (government) and the people were poor due to over taxation (believe it or not the government will rip you off just as easily as any corporation) He was essentially implementing tax cuts.

lol. I see that humor is sometimes difficult in text; but I suppose you may also have been unaware of the popular culture surrounding Mr. Hood: Steal from rich, give to poor. Nice to see you doing your research into English folklore.

P4 Wrote:Actually while I'm on the subject of government ripping people off, at least when you give money to a corporation you get the expected product...

Do you know why this happens? It's because the law (that thing put in place and enforced by the government) prohibits a corporation from selling you products that are different from what the corporation says they are

P4 Wrote:..., giving money to the government and its likely your tax dollars will go to all sorts of stupid things, like politician vacations.

Those politicians are routinely ridiculed by the media and voters have the ability to vote against those candidates in an election. We call it Democratic Representation. It would be a lot more helpful if you had provided any evidence to suggest that this wasteful spending such as paid vacations occurs more within governments than it does within corporations (where executives can get bonuses and severance packages in the tens of millions of dollars worth and their paid vacations aren't the subject of scandal).

P4 Wrote:... don't believe me? well here's an article from late last year on where your tax money for health care goes:
<The article>

So what you have there is a story about PHOs (government funded and regulated but more-or-less independently managed organizations that compensate medical practices for treatment) being investigated by the government (the government saves the day?) for not spending tax dollars but putting those dollars into bank accounts or investments (that are most probably in the private sector). I don't know how this supports any of your points, but it sure supports many of mine.

P4 Wrote:...And yet you thought that John Keys change in position was "disgraceful"

Yes it was, because the guy promised one thing: lower taxes; and then delivered the opposite thing: higher taxes; when it was obvious that tax revenues would be shrinking along with the recession during his term.

P4 Wrote:I suppose you also think this list of Obama's broken promises are equally disgraceful:
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/...se-broken/

Yes I do, for those promises that were actually broken (not things that haven't happened yet) where Obama's administration has done something that was the complete opposite of what he had proposed and it was fairly certain that this would be impossible to achieve given the trends. This has occurred one time: The public health-care option. The Obama administration hasn't been aggressive enough in its pursuit of a public option and any chance to include a public option is now unlikely. This is disgraceful. The only reason it's less disgraceful is that President Obama has no congressional vote that contributes to the passage of laws, whereas Mr. Key does.

P4 Wrote:... John Key also didn't break his promise, he tried the tax cuts and it didn't work out...

He actually did break his promise, and it was pretty clear that the nation wouldn't be able to afford a tax cut without major cutbacks which apparently weren't implemented, so it's a shame that Mr. Key had said we could.

P4 Wrote:See, I support good ideas regardless of party affiliation, i'm not calling Obama a disgrace for not fulfilling promises, in fact I support the healthcare reform over there, but I get the feeling some people would never support anything centre or right wing without even considering the ideas and purpose behind them.

Good point, but I don't think this is all that common. Most of the problems happen when people are given information in misleading ways (ie. Only the one negative effect of the proposed bill that is far outweighed by its positives), or given information that is just wrong. But there are always people who believe anything their party or friends/family tell them.

If things like groceries and perhaps electricity were tax free, I wouldn't mind paying extra tax for something I don't need like a brand new beamer or something. I'm only meaning like 15%ish

Quote:lol. I see that humor is sometimes difficult in text; but I suppose you may also have been unaware of the popular culture surrounding Mr. Hood: Steal from rich, give to poor. Nice to see you doing your research into English folklore.

I read the wiki, which confirmed what I thought. Robin mainly fought against the evil king, he wouldn't be evil if he wasn't oppressing the population.
But like I said, its folklore, and has been retold in many different versions that no doubt reflected the storytellers intent at that time.

Quote:Do you know why this happens? It's because the law (that thing put in place and enforced by the government) prohibits a corporation from selling you products that are different from what the corporation says they are

Arguably, in a free market this law isn't necessary becasue if someone trys to do this, they will loose out to the competition pretty quick. Have you ever made a purchasing decision based on a review? what about a recommendation from a friend? Did you need the government to make a law stating that CPU manufacturers that sell 'quad cores' must actually have 4 cores, or where you able to make a decision for yourself?

Quote:where executives can get bonuses and severance packages in the tens of millions of dollars worth and their paid vacations aren't the subject of scandal

The difference here is that they are doing this with their profits that they earned. They aren't taking your money and not giving you a product but instead just taking an executive bonus. The people that need to worry about this are the investors (note: not usually poor people).
I do admit that there is a problem, the idea of a company/corporation is that the owner is not liable for the company. This has many benefits which we wont get into, but it is possible to run your company into the ground (usually by doing work for another of your companys which dont pay the doomed company, so you can cheat your way to getting free work for your other company) in NZ it's too easy to start a company, and yes I would support a regulation here.

Quote:So what you have there is a story about PHOs (government funded and regulated but more-or-less independently managed organizations that compensate medical practices for treatment) being investigated by the government (the government saves the day?) for not spending tax dollars but putting those dollars into bank accounts or investments (that are most probably in the private sector). I don't know how this supports any of your points, but it sure supports many of mine.

So government funded, government regulated, spending government money, does it have to be directly managed by John key himself to not be independently managed in your eyes?

They were set up seven years ago by the labour government, and the wastage is only now being investigated by the national government.

PHOs were set up seven years ago to pump Government funding into community health
and
College of General Practitioners chief executive Karen Thomas said doctors had been trying to raise awareness of wastage in the health system for years

Note that PHO's are an idea with good intentions, no one wanted them to increase wastage and corruption, they were set up to help people, but sometimes these ideas effectively do the opposite in the long run. And the cynic in me says that wastage was expected, but an idea with good intentions gets popular vote...

And are you trying to say that its the private sectors fault that the beauracracy is corrupt? and the tax dollars were spent, in the sense that the government had thrown all the money at the PHO's (look at us spending all this money on healthcare!) but the money achieved nothing being stalled by the layers of beauracracy.

Independent Practitioners Association Council chairwoman Bev O'Keefe said GPs were frustrated that funding intended for health initiatives was getting stalled at PHO level.

Quote:

Quote:I have been unable to find a source for this -- but I highly doubt its validity given that over half of the top 100 earners in the country are not paying the top tax rate on their earnings

I don't have a source for this, just read it somewhere. Now with the issue of half the top 100 earners not paying the top tax rate. I can see how, as the article puts it, that this can be 'astounding to the layman' but its not as some would have you believe that these rich people are cheating and bribing their way out of paying tax. They obviously have an income in the top 100 and if that was the money they recieved in their hand each year they would be paying tax in the top rate accordingly. the reason they aren't most likey (without knowing the details) is that business expenses come off your taxable income. i.e. if you make alot of money one year, you can decide that I don't really need all this money so I can put most of it back into the business (expansions, more staff, employee bonuses maybe?) so they actually recieve less money in their pockets and are taxed accordingly.

P4 Wrote:So government funded, government regulated, spending government money, does it have to be directly managed by John key himself to not be independently managed in your eyes?

No. It just needs to be managed by a government appointee or elected political representative who is subject to the will of the voter. Given that this may not be the case, the voter cannot execute direct authority over the PHO without having the government threaten to cut funding entirely.
So to sum it up: Correct. PHOs aren't managed by the government, and when you say they're wasting tax dollars, what the article says is that they haven't spent the tax dollars (rather invested/banked). So one question would be: How can you waste money if you haven't even spent it?
Furthermore, given that PHOs are, as you have pointed out, wasteful, and given that PHOs are independently managed, does this mean that you are saying independently managed organizations are more wasteful and less efficient with tax dollars? I would tend to agree.

P4 Wrote:Did you need the government to make a law stating that CPU manufacturers that sell 'quad cores' must actually have 4 cores, or where you able to make a decision for yourself?

Yes I did actually. My CPU has 4 cores, and if the law didn't require it to have 4 cores when AMD says it does, then it would probably have one core and three others that were drawn on the top with a permanent marker. Consumer protections also would have helped all the people who recently purchased counterfeit Core i7 CPUs from Newegg


Consumer protection laws exist not because consumers can't decide for themselves, but because all-too-often companies try to sell products that don't work, don't last and aren't what they claimed. Detailed specifications (ie. which chips from which manufacturers from which fabrication plants) are impossible to find at sale point for most electronic products, and even if you were given that information, there's probably only one person on earth that could use it to identify the bad eggs before they buy.

P4 Wrote:... The difference here is that they are doing this with their profits that they earned.

That's not always the case (AIG, Goldman Sachs, etc.)

P4 Wrote:They aren't taking your money and not giving you a product but instead just taking an executive bonus.

I don't see how this is different from politicians taking taxpayer's money and spending it on their vacations. They're still giving you that healthcare that they promised. They're just... taking an executive bonus.